Sony resurgent?

[DrSpike]

Yeah the time dimension is key here, and Halo 2 is a fine example. On release it was very well received, but by today's standards it's just decent.

It works the other way too - FEAR was acclaimed on the PC, and the same game released quite a lot later was panned by Xbox 360 owners.

Also worth considering that lots of games don't work on the PC unless you have an Xbox style controller. Even then it can feel weird on a PC. And, if you are me, playing on your Xbox means surround sound and a TV which is considerably bigger than my monitor.

So I don't really agree with the point SB is making.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
Wii: Jedi Knight

When?

Not necessarily a continuation of the Jedi Knight series, but LucasArts has confirmed they are working on at least one Wii title.

[Kataphraktoi]

I was poking around on google and it didnt sound to promising as a saber game. Whatever ''it'' is, i couldnt find very much info.

[Asher]

Re: Sony resurgent?

Originally posted by Agathon
I finally got around to having a go on a PS3 this last weekend. Seems to me that reports of its demise may be somewhat premature.

I am not shocked this is a conclusion you drew. Others might think differently -- even with Sony's $100 pricecut, it failed out outsell the non-pricecut Xbox 360 and also in the same munch of tons of bad press about the 360's reliability. Resurgent? Really?

The 360 and the PS3 are, however, in direct competition. Some folks have made a big deal of how far the PS3 is behind. Well, it is in the US, but not in Japan, and it isn't that far behind when you compare sales from launch date, as this ars technica article does.

We don't live in Japan, and Japan is increasingly irrelevant. It is now the third largest gaming market, behind North America and Europe. North America's is growing fastest still, with Europe in second. Japan's market is stagnant.

Second, why bother aligning the release dates? Sony released it a year later -- period. Aligning them serves no purpose but to alter reality to try to fit a pet theory.

There are minor differences between the consoles. For example, the PS3 cross media bar is a far better and cooler looking interface than the 360's blade UI. I liked the XMB on the PSP (which I own), but it is even better on the PS3. It's right up there with some of Apple's better UIs.

Who can argue with such a well-reasoned argument?

The XMB is way better than the 360's interface, of course. From the intuitiveness (press TRIANGLE if you wish to delete a file -- but it doesn't tell you that anywhere, does it)? Games are listed in an annoying, disorganized vertical list without names, just animated icons. Demos, disc games, downloaded PSN games, etc. are all randomly mixed in together with no way to reorder the rather random list. It's "far better" by these metrics alone.

But just for good measure, let's throw in other ways the XMB is better:
1) You can't bring it up in game at all. Well, I guess that doesn't matter anyway! Who needs a competent multitasking operating system in 2007, right?
2) It uses 96MB of RAM compared to the Xbox 360's 32MB of RAM. Who cares that games can't use 96MB of RAM? Did you know that the keyboard input widget alone takes 9 MB of RAM on a PS3? That's efficient, elegant design.
3) The playstation store. So, so elegantly designed. It's a webpage that's navigable with dual thumbsticks. Isn't that fun? Screw the menu-driven approach that works well with gamepads, let's spice things up and aggravate them even more. The random design of the store is a bonus as well, and I love how they keep shoving all these Sony Pictures movie trailers down my throat when I'm accessing the Playstation Store for...I don't know...Playstation stuff.

The first is that the 360 really sucks balls as a media centre. Sure, the software works fine, and I can even stream stuff from my Mac with a cheap shareware app, and I can plug my iPod into it if I want to and have access to all its playlists. That's good, but the problem is that the 360 sounds like a jet engine when you do anything other than play a disc in it (a DVD or CD). This is unacceptable if you want to play anything other than death metal from the hard drive (and the UI for playlists sucks as well). It doesn't matter so much when you are playing games, but it sucks for everything else. I'd hoped to use mine for this, but it just doesn't work very well due to the noise. The PS3 is much quieter.

While the PS3 is notably quieter, I do not hear the 360 when I use it as a media centre. It's much quieter than when it's used to play games. But let's cut to the chase -- its function as a media centre. The PS3's half-assed XMB is frustrating (and unreliable, if you've ever tried to stream media from TVersity or Nero MediaHome). Ever tried putting a video/audio file on a memory stick and sticking it into the USB port on your PS3? It can't figure out how to read that unless you use an obtuse, non-documented directory structure.

The 360, on the other hand, has a full blown Media Centre Extender. I suppose, being a Mac user, you've no idea what this is...but it's Apple TV with far more features and far more functionality. The PS3's media features are still very immature.

But the real difference is the optical drive. The one beef I have with a lot of 360 games is that they are simply too short. Gears of War is a fantastic game, but the solo campaigns are too short. Ghost Recon 2 is even better than GOW in my opinion, but again suffers from a short campaign (in other news GOW is coming to the Macintosh for some unknown reason!). There you have two great games that are hobbled by a lack of content.

That's all fine and dandy, but it is solely due to the DVD drive in the 360. There just isn't enough room on an ordinary DVD to allow a game with the graphics of GOW and a heap of content.

Yes, it's well known that the #1 limiting factor for game lengths is storage space. It is completely impossible to have games with many hours of gameplay on a DVD (like Oblivion). It is completely impossible to issue games on multiple discs. It is 100% unlikely that the reason most games aren't longer, especially linear games like Gears of War, is budget and time constraints. Hell, it doesn't matter that if you dump 90% of Xbox 360 games (including all the ones mentioned above), none of them come close to using the full DVD in terms of capacity.

No, the limitation isn't size of the disc, it's resources: budgetary and time constraints.

I guess you could buy the add on HD DVD drive, but it still isn't as good as Blu ray because Blu Ray has a higher capacity (just under twice what HD DVD has).

Huh? Really? I suppose you haven't heard of the upcoming 51GB tri-layer HD DVD discs. I also suppose you haven't heard how bluray discs have far more invasive DRM than HD DVD and cost far more to make.

Moreover, how many people are going to actually buy the HD DVD drive? Developers are going to face a tough choice between releasing 360 games on DVD (with a potential customer base of all users) and much better games on HD DVD (with a fraction of the user base as potential customers). If you are developing for the PS3, you know that everyone is going to have the big capacity drive, so that is not a problem.

You cannot release games on the HD DVD addon. It's a rule.

Further, you're not looking at this from all dimensions. Did you know that transfer speeds on Sony's bluray disc are half as fast as the standard DVD in the 360? If you've played PS3 games like Motorstorm, I'm sure you'll agree the PS3's loading times are a bit lacking.

I guess it isn't much of a difference now, since most games will be released for both platforms. But what about 3 years down the road, when games will take up more disk space than they do now? Unless Microsoft releases a Blu Ray drive for the 360, they will still be stuck with a lower capacity format. I know that a lot of people love console roleplaying games. Wouldn't you rather have a game with twice as much content?

Seriously. Are you being paid here? Not only are most of your point superficial FUD, but this whole approach of "wouldn't you rather have twice as much content?" smells strongly of PR. Let's also remind people that the bottleneck isn't capacity (solutions: multiple discs, if necessary), it's money and time. You do not seem to appreciate how much time and money it takes to implement a good game today.

[Asher]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
Also, you're completely ignoring the pointer function of the wii-mote. For some reason, "real" gamers tend to overlook the pointer and think the controls are pure waggle gimmickry.

There is no pointer functionality. When I think of pointers, I think of light guns, laster pointers, etc. You know, things where if I POINT at something, that is registered.

The Wiimote approximates pointing by using the gyros to detect movement and the infrared to get a general direction. You may consider it "pointing", but to "real" gamers who expect precision control, it is all about waggle gimmickry. It's an approximated pointer, which is infuriatingly inaccurate.

For instance, I have to point significantly higher than what's on my TV for the pointer to "point' there. And more to the right as well...

Wii-Fit?

Oh right, that's not a "real" game.

Just like Richard Simmons Dances to the Oldies isn't a "real" movie.

[Asher]

51GB HD DVD discs are now official: http://www.screendigest.com/online_s...60907-ec3/show

[Asher]

Even if you align the launch dates now, it looks grim for the PS3.

The Wii continues to dominate hardware, of course, but that's another story and another market.

The 360 outsold it by more than 2-1 in August.

[DrSpike]

Wow, the Wii sure is kicking butt.

[Asher]

Yes, I hear 50 Cent's new CD is also kicking butt. Unfortunately, I don't believe either are in full competition with the 360 and PS3.

See my Tiger Handheld analogy in a previous post. People are buying Wiis to be hip, to play Wii Sports for 2 hours until they get bored of it, or because it looks pretty. They're surely not buying games.

When it first came out, I remember all of the hype about how awesome games like Madden would be on it. "Think of it, you can throw a pass! Really now!". It got outsold by the 360 version 9 to 1.

Then you have the flagship Metroid Prime 3 -- genuinely the first decent game for the Wii since RE4 (which even then was a port from the GCN most people already played), and it got spanked by a no-name franchise on the 360.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Asher


People are buying Wiis to be hip, to play Wii Sports for 2 hours until they get bored of it, or because it looks pretty.

So, which reason caused you to buy it?

ACK!

[Asher]

I always buy all consoles. I'm a gamer.

[DrSpike]

Well, you try to be.

Just owning stuff isn't enough to be a true gamer.

[Asher]

I play a hell of a lot of games... my gamerscore speaks for itself.

Just because I can be objective with the capabilities of the consoles I own doesn't mean I'm not a gamer. There are genuinely VERY few even decent games for the Wii and PS3. This isn't just my opinion, look at game reviews. The best games are Gamecube games that got ported over for the Wii, and the best games for the PS3 are still run-of-the-mill shooters.

Right now, if you are a gamer, the place to be is the 360. It's just that simple.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Asher
Just because I can be objective with the capabilities of the consoles I own doesn't mean I'm not a gamer. There are genuinely VERY few even decent games for the Wii and PS3. This isn't just my opinion, look at game reviews. The best games are Gamecube games that got ported over for the Wii, and the best games for the PS3 are still run-of-the-mill shooters.

Right now, if you are a gamer, the place to be is the 360. It's just that simple.

Well since I own an Xbox 360 for that reason I'm not going to disagree.

But I am more open minded about the future than you.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Asher
I play a hell of a lot of games... my gamerscore speaks for itself.

Yes you do (68 according to the online profile, though some will be demos) - but owning and playing is not the same as playing well.